Chess Board and box

Hey LJ’s! Here’s my latest project. I built this from Steve Ramsey’s chess board build over at Mere Mortals. It’s made from walnut and maple, and inlaid with black epoxy. I originally inlaid it with a black and white inlay strip I purchased, but blew a chunk out of it while sanding, so I ran the board through the table saw a few times to get rid of it, as repairing it would have been almost impossible. I was going to leave the grooves empty at my wifes request, but I thought it looked incomplete, so I filled them with black epoxy. I’d never worked with it before, and I don’t know why I thought it would work, but it did and ended up quite nice. It always seems to be the biggest errors that turn out the nicest. I added drawers on both sides for the pieces to go in, and it was my first time making my own custom pulls. I finished it with about 5 coats of Daly’s Seafin Teak Oil, and Liberon Black Bison paste wax. I had a blast making it, and have already 3 requests for more. Thanks for the inspiration!

Marcos's Projects

Everyone's Projects

Project tags/keywords

13 comments so far

Very cool! I use 2 part fiberglass resin on some inlay things i do. Not even sure if its called inlay or a pour i guess. Anyways with the fiberglass resin i use sprya paint for the coloring. Then you can do any color youd like and it doesnt cost alot. Its fun and something differant to play around with!

I have been thinking about making one, but I was thinking endgrain. Now that I look at yours, face grain it is for me! much less work also! The kerfs with epoxy turned out great, and only you (and every other lumberjock) will know it was not on purpose.

Very nicely done; I really like the stories where a flaw turns into a really nice accent. By the way, how do you get the glossy look on the epoxy? I’ve added black shoe polish with epoxy and it always seems to come out real dull looking. Thanks